


Birds of a Feather

by merryfortune



Series: Princess Tutu Week Fills [2]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Ahirue Week 2020, Angst, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24245863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryfortune/pseuds/merryfortune
Summary: Entries for Ahirue Week 2020. Some chapters are canon compliant and some are alternate universe.
Relationships: Ahiru | Duck/Rue (Princess Tutu)
Series: Princess Tutu Week Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750081
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Blue

Rue’s touch was so soft. Her fingertips, her lips, her cheeks like young lychee fruits: all of her. She was soft. Soft as a feather, funnily enough, Ahiru thought. She couldn’t help but be enraptured by it as they kissed.

Her lips were soft. Slightly scented with the vanilla bean and honey balm that she used. They were smooth and supple. Cute like Cupid’s bow in shape and truly befitting of the image of a maidenly princess, Ahiru thought as compared to how she worried hers were like. Flat and chapped or worse. Like a beak. Hardened and inflexible. But such anxieties were quelled as Rue pressed on.

And she didn’t  _ just _ use her lips to kiss. Rue was far more elegant and thoughtful than that. She used her hands. One on Ahiru’s waist, to keep her close. She played with the pleats in Ahiru’s grey school skirt. The other on Ahiru’s chin, to keep her, again, close but also caressed and cupped. It was steamy. She used her voice as well, sighing into it. The reverberations just so pleasant in Ahiru’s mouth. Like the silver tune of her favourite ballroom song, that was how it felt to be the instrument of Rue’s pleasure. Beautiful and sublime. But there was a perpetual essence of melancholy to Rue’s refined and beautifull kiss which Ahiru could only ever hope to soothe with her own plucky and awkward kiss.

But, all in all, Ahiru was completely and utterly entranced by how Rue kissed her. Thus, Ahiru’s eyes were wide open through the whole of it. As long and pleasurably drawn out as it was. Her eyes glittered, all wide and blue as she watched Rue kiss her. Rue, of course, being mature and elegant, had her eyes closed and not for one second, did Ahiru ever think she was being gauche.

She had never been kissed before and Ahiru was beginning to acclimatise to the childish certainty that she never wanted to be kissed again. At least not by someone who was not Rue. Ahiru would rather like that. Being able to kiss Rue for all eternity and more but alas, such things could not come to pass due to trivial things like the need to breathe.

With yet another sigh, elegant and poised, Rue broke off the kiss. Her breath was lukewarm on Ahiru’s lips which tingled with the sensation of kissing and having been kissed. Her gorgeous eyes, framed by long black lashes, fluttered open and there was mischief revealed in the crimson of her starlet irises.

“Ahiru.” Rue murmured, stern but amused, “were you staring at me?”

“Uh-huh...” Ahiru mumbled with a nod of her head. Dumbfounded.

“That is generally considered impolite, my dear.” Rue told her gently.

“Oh.” Ahiru’s voice was blunt but endearing. “I didn’t know that.”

“I had a feeling.” Rue said and with her fingers, all spidery, she tilted Ahiru’s face up to her again and she smiled. “But now you know.”

“But now I know.” Ahiru echoed. She looked embarrassed, with flushed red cheeks and an apologetic look in those adorable eyes of hers.

They kissed again. Tender and breathless and soft. But with blue eyes closed. Red eyes open, endeared. She smiled into the kiss which she once again led Ahiru through, holding her closely and sighing into it.


	2. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One. Still Pond.

**Ahiru:** Thank you for inviting me, Professor.

**Your Options of Tea:**

  * Almond Blend
  * Bergamot
  * Cinnamon
  * Lavender



**You Select:** Cinnamon

**Ahiru:** Oh wow, Professor, it's my favourite. How did you know?

**Offer Tea:** Select?

**Offer Tea:** Selected.

**Ahiru:** Mm, thank you, it warms me to the heart.

**Talk?** One of Three.

**Talk.** Selected.

  * Shareable snacks. 
  * Strange fish in the pond.
  * The last battle.



**Strange fish in the pond.**

**Ahiru:** Wow.

**Ahiru:** [Affection] One Up.

**They were drawn into the conversation!**

**Ahiru:** You know, Professor, I spend a lot of time by the pond. I thought I knew the names of all the fishes - Serenity, Leila, Maude - but I swear there are some new faces. Oh well, I hope they get along with the others. Don’t you, Professor?

**Talk?** Two of Three.

**Talk.** Selected.

  * Perfect recipes. 
  * Fashion.
  * Cooking mishaps.



**Cooking mishaps.**

**Ahiru:** Qu-Quack!

**Ahiru:** [no status change]

**Ahiru:** I didn’t mean to! The flames on the stoves can be so scary. I wish I could be like Rue, she’s so pretty and talented in everything, even cooking. But I’ll admit, it scares me when she cooks duck… but everyone else really likes it. I like her biscuits best, to be honest. Not scary at all!

**Talk?** Three of Three.

**Talk.** Selected.

  * The view from the bridge. 
  * Close calls.
  * Overcoming weaknesses.



**The view from the bridge.**

**Ahiru:** [Affection] One up!

**The conversation got lively!**

**Ahiru:** Oh, I just love spending my free time there. I think it would be so romantic to confess your feelings to someone there. I wonder if Rue would ever join me on the bridge….

**Ahiru:** Professor, you don’t say much but that’s okay. It reminds me of all my little animal friends. They don’t talk much either, at least not like this. With a blabbering mouth. I hope you enjoyed my company, I get scolded a lot for bringing up Rue too much, nowadays, haha…

  * Admonish.
  * Sigh.
  * Laugh.



**Laugh.**

**Ahiru:** [blushing] I think it's funny too. 

**Ahiru and the Professor are having an engaging conversation!**

**Good Teatime. Impactful conversations: three.**

  * Observe?
  * End? 



**Observe.**

Ahiru picks up the teacup and drinks some more.

Present observation is that Ahiru has a crush on her classmate Rue. Perhaps you ought to pair them up more for group tasks. Flying could be a good fit for them, hmm?

  * Observe?
  * End?



**End.**

End the tea party?

  * Yes?
  * No?



**Yes.**

**Ahiru:** Thank you so much Professor for the tea. It’s been splendid. I feel like a real noble now. Like a princess even! I hope you invite me again soon, Professor.

**Ahiru and the Professor enjoyed their time together.**

**The Professor’s charm increased by one.**

**Ahiru’s charm increased by one as a result of the tea party.**


	3. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two. Black Feathers.

**Rue:** It is always a pleasure to be invited to high tea, Professor.

**Your Options of Tea:**

  * Almond Blend
  * Bergamot
  * Crescent Moon
  * Lavender



**You Select:** Crescent Moon

 **Rue:** Why Professor, this fragrance is wonderful, truly my favourite, thank you.

 **Offer Tea:** Select?

 **Offer Tea:** Selected.

 **Rue:** Simply divine.

 **Talk?** One of Three.

 **Talk.** Selected.

  * Monastery rules. 
  * The opera.
  * Things that bother you.



**The opera.**

**Rue:** Wonderful, Professor.

 **Rue:** [Affection] One Up.

**They were drawn into the conversation!**

**Rue:** Contrary to my appearance, and my reputation, I fear that my singing voice is more like the screeching of crows than anything truly beautiful but I do admire, very deeply, those that can sing well. But alas, my talent is dance and my passion is ballet. Though, I would never be opposed to a night at the opera, my dear Professor.

 **Talk?** Two of Three.

 **Talk.** Selected.

  * You seem different. 
  * Classes you may enjoy.
  * The library’s collection.



**You seem different.**

**Rue:** [Affection] One up!

**The conversation got lively!**

**Rue:** You think so, Professor? I trust your word as you are our wise teacher but I’m not sure myself. I think I’ve just rekindled that naive firelight in my heart from childhood. Ever since I met Ahiru, she has inspired my inner child and has reminded me of my passions and ideals. Her eccentricity is so charming, perhaps I could do with letting loose my love similarly rather than keeping it all to myself, so possessive and jealous.

 **Talk?** Three of Three.

  * Guessing someone’s age. 
  * I’m counting on you.
  * The ideal relationship.



**The ideal relationship.**

**Rue:** How lovely.

 **Rue:** [Affection] One Up.

**They were drawn into the conversation!**

**Rue:** There was someone I used to be truly, madly, deeply in love with but over time, our hearts split apart and it felt like despair. I still care for him deeply but alas, I do not think what we had was ideal. Whenever we kissed, I would taste blood. Was it mine or his? I don’t think that’s rather ideal, not anymore at least. I want someone who, when I kiss, is feather soft and reminds me that there is hope. I think I would find that most ideal, as I am now.

 **Rue:** I find you utterly mysterious, Professor. Perhaps it is a taste of my own medicine, I am often told I am cold and enigmatic but I hope to be like you, Professor. Warm but still distant. No one needs to know the truest and most purest inner workings of my heart. No one by me, myself, and I… and perhaps our lover. 

  * Commend.
  * Chat.
  * Blush.



**Commend.**

**Rue:** The matters of the heart are too messy to ever be regal but I shall try.

**Rue and the Professor are having an engaging conversation!**

**Perfect Teatime. Impactful conversations: four.**

  * Observe?
  * End? 



**Observe.**

Rue picks up the teacup and drinks some more.

 **Rue:** Truly delightful.

Present observation is that it is possible that Rue requites Ahiru’s crush but is concerned about sullying her with her past, perhaps. Regardless, their supports are quite close to maxing out. Their paired ending is a possibility, no doubt thanks to the extra curriculars you set them but it couldn’t hurt to matchmake them in the dining hall.

  * Observe?
  * End?



**End.**

**End the tea party?**

  * Yes?
  * No?



**Yes.**

**Rue:** It appears that time has gotten away on us. I do enjoy our time together, though Professor but I must take my leave, thank you.

**Rue and the Professor enjoyed their time together.**

**The Professor’s charm increased by one.**

**Rue’s charm increased by one as a result of the tea party.**


	4. Protector

Rue went out to the lake as she did many afternoons.

She scanned the horizons with world weary eyes and sighed. The Kingdom was blissful, utopic, static. She enjoyed it but she longed for something new. In her heavy heart, she knew that she had fallen out of love with all the glamour around her. As such, Rue longed for something different and as she soaked up the once again heavenly surrounds of her palace grounds, she realised something.

In the middle of the lake, coming down from the sky was a ghost of a bird. A duck. Long winged and made of clouds, a red light on its throat. She swallowed and awaited its arrival with a heavy heart. In her growing grief, she looked down at her own hands and wondered: when she had she grown older?

It seemed like just last month that she had come to this kingdom.

It seemed like just last week she had been married to her Prince.

And it seemed like just yesterday that she had been a young maiden. Barely sixteen. She was, at airy present, not that much older. Barely eighteen but time here was eerie. Ethereal. Unbidden by the normal processes of how it worked outside, in the planes and the realms unwritten and real.

She wondered how much longer it had been on the outside world.

Rue strode forward. The lake came up to her ankles, gentle and cold. The hems of her dresses and all its undercarriages and elegant and excessive tresses, all shimmering whites and transcendental golds, dragged in the water’s hands, its selfish waves which begged to drag her down to its murky depths. So incontrary to how still and mirror like that the lake was further into that nigh unending horizon which expanded before her eyes. But it was here in the shallows that Rue remained, awaiting this dear bird. Here in the mud and silt and she did not mind. Not even as her glass high heels sank into the drudgery as she came to kneel in the water so she may greet this bird who had come to her Kingdom.

(At long last, some may say.)

With her open arms, she cradled this spirit and, in her arms, embracing it, bringing her face down to its beak so it may kiss her cheek with a similarly mournful expression in its eyes, the ghost was given a body.

Yes, once more.

Once upon a time, this duck was given the body of a young girl all so she could become the protector of Gold Crown Town and her Prince and his emotions. Destined tasks which she fulfilled like the graceful warrior that she was, but it had tired her so, so much, Rue understood as she had been this tiny duck’s bane.

But it was this task, her final journey, which clearly had exhausted her the most. She felt like a corpse, cold and still, in Rue’s gentle embrace. She was so light. Just her soul but with each passing second, she was given a feather.

And now, this little bird was given her own body but once again of a duck, but she was so much more than just a duck.

Oh, her precious, Ahiru, Rue thought to herself as tears slid down her face. Just like the waters that lapped at her, her tears cold. She held dearly onto her precious friend’s body. It was sad and limp, but Rue did not mind one bit. Her journey from life to death and life again had likely exhausted her. Even all these years later, as an adult bird, she was still so tiny but perhaps not that spry.

“Welcome home, my dear.” Rue told her in a whisper quiet voice rife with grief.

With a slow movement, Ahiru raised her wing and with the wisp of her feathers, she wiped a tear from the side of Rue’s face.

Gosh, she had not aged a day, unlike this creature which she held but her hold was like home. Like a humble nest of twigs and down, Ahiru did not want to be anywhere else but here. With only her eyes and her inhuman voice, Ahriu hoped that her gratitude to have been greeted by her precious friend after such a long and melancholy journey.

But Rue only embraced her tighter, weeping.


	5. Makeup

The orb of crystal, pure and transparent, turned to a bubble.

Iridescence spun on the bubble. Floating, floating, floating. Within it, Ahiru saw a vision of what had been - the porcelain girl with yarn for hair, dancing on a mechanical stage - and a vision of what was to come. In a twirl, in a spin, Ahiru glimpsed herself in the bubble’s soft and finite edge.

The bubble turned into an orb of crystal, impure and misty.

The girl still danced but no longer was she of white clay and feldspar and yarn and paint. She became flesh and blood. The dancer became Ahiru. Ahiru became the dancer. Lost and confused, heart pounding so good and so slow as she tried to understand her surroundings.

Ahiru waded through both the people around her and dress. She felt like a princess. A princess whose voice and breath had been stolen away. Her back up straight, her hair elaborately down with twigs and leaves sprayed silver. The dress was immaculate with how dysfunctional it was. Glitzy and glamourous. Off her shoulders with poofy, opaque gloves which glittered and a ballroom style gown which gave her plenty of space but not enoguh.

The people all around her, laughed and bustled and Ahiru couldn’t hear a single sound of it. She wandered through, lost and confused, and the only one not dancing. All around her, these people spun and twirled and made themselves dizzy as they had their grand fun at this ball. They wore these long, beaked masks and thick, crafted guises bejeweled and bedazzled and wrestled about with feathers - black as ink - streaking around, silky smooth on Ahiru’s exposed skin and she couldn’t have a wink of it. They grabbed at her and howled with that laughter, loud and raucous with gaping open mouths, which Ahriu couldn’t hear. Somewhere in it all, Ahiru saw her.

Her. The Crow Queen Rue.

Gods above and beyond, she looked a starlet in all. Truly the crimson jewel of the ball.

Just like Ahiru, Rue was the only one without a mask but with her make-up done up as it were, perhaps she didn’t need one. 

Ahiru continued through the crowd. She grabbed at her gossamer skirts, all blue and silver and sparkling, and tried to find her. In the blink of an eye, she disappeared like a predatory bird. 

She had to find her, she had to find her, Ahiru thought as she struggled against the tides of drunken party-goers. Click, click, click went her glass shoes as she tried to find any hint or sign of that femme fatale. Any swish of silk or any flutter of feathers, any clash of crimson. Anything, simply anything. Instead, as Ahiru battled all these opposing forces of gaudy and bawdy people who wanted nothing more to have fun around her. As Ahiru stepped this way somewhat and stepped another way whatnot, pushed and shoved about, she saw a clock on the wall. Between the masks that people wore, in between the slats of feathers people wall and she could hear it. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The hour hand loomed; the minutes hand leered.

She was forgetting something. She knew that that she was forgetting something. She was certain that she had forgotten something. Something very, very important. Now lost. 

Her heart pounded with the tick-tock of the clock. Then there was a tap, tap, tap on her shoulder. Her heart leapt out of her chest, her spirit lept out of her skin and when she turned around, hasty and afraid, she was greeted with the perfect picture of calm in the calamity around her.

The only one not wearing a mask but again, with make-up like that, like licks of fire over her eyes and with smoke on her lashes and those gorgeously prim eyes of crimson, she needed it not.

Rue smiled. “May I have this dance?” Rue asked. She sounded like how the prettiest painted glass reflected moonlight.

Ahiru swallowed. She could hear it now. What people danced to. It was such a slow song, one which the world could fall down to, for how quick the people danced and made their ruckus to. 

How could she say no?

She needed not to say it.

Relaxing, easing her guard, Ahiru accepted Rue’s hand in dance. She was feather soft and light on her feet. Her dress was eccentric in how it swished around, bleeding excess glitter as they danced about to that song. That song, of lyres and harps and drums and violins and something electric too, which was silvery and felt like a starlit caress beneath the crystalline chandelier that they danced beneath. A song about how the stars didn’t just move for anyone but how Rue moved them for Ahiru for that was the fantasy. A cruel queen sweet only for one, young girl, all doughy and naive and duck feathered. A beautiful and slow song.

But it was too crowded in here. Too claustrophobic. The surfaces shone and reflected but they lacked a certain iridescence despite being utterly pearlescent and like cream. The gold furnishings on the tables and chairs and door frames and stairs, they weren’t gold. They were flaking. Ahiru’s heart and will trembled but she had to. She had to get away. Time was getting away on her and she wasn’t sure what for but her shoes were glass so she had to get away.

She let go of Rue’s hand and Rue didn’t try to stop her. She merely stood in the crowd, still as a mirrored lake, amidst her subjects of crowed and crooning people. All whilst Ahiru fled, not once looking back until it was too late.

She had nowhere else to flee. It only took her a few seconds to get to the curved edge of this place she was being trapped in. She looked around, frantically, hair falling out of place, as she whipped around before deciding, in desperation, to simply break down this wall in front of her. She grabbed a chair, wicker and iron and a baby pastel blue, and she smashed it against the wall. 

Ahiru bit her lip as she watched not the chair, but the wall, shatter.

Shard after glass shard, the wall shattered having been hit with all the might which Ahiru could muster. With one last, soulful and even regretful, rueful, look over her shoulder unto Rue and she sucked in a breath. She turned forward once more and she jumped through the hole which she had made.

Her dress fluttered and caught on the shards but Ahiru simply slipped through it. She wasn’t a doll or some toy, she wasn’t the mechanical dancer who danced on a music box podium. She was a person, with agency, with something important to do… even if she couldn’t remember. 

She fell through the air for what felt like an eternity, in her jeans and in her peasant top coloured like the downy bum of a yellow chicken. She didn’t even scream as her arms flailed and as she sailed downwards through this void with glass and iridescent still shattering over her until she finally got away from that magic sphere, from the ballroom and how suffocating it had been.

Ahiru crash landed on the outskirts of the Crow Queen’s Castle. Clouds of dust and dirt puffed up around her as her head hit a trumpet and a vase and a cardboard box and goodness knows what else. But she was free. And she laid there, dazed, in the dying garden of the most precious and important things rusted and dusted with the taste of the poisoned peach on her lips, gazing off into the distance, her heart pounding for the Crow Queen Rue and for the Crow Queen Rue alone for Ahiru had forgotten something quite dire.


	6. Magic

She was that powerful. That mad love with love that she could but if she were, rue thought, she knew that her blood would be toxic and her love to be corrupt for someone as pure and white-feathered as she. As such was the fate of the Crow Princess, no matter how redeemed and purified herself. She knew that the Raven’s blood was still in her veins, still pumping through her heart so if she was to break it… Even just a piece of it… it would only result in horrible and dire consequence.

Her heart could produce no jewel, not a single piece, for Ahiru who looked, so lame as only a tired and plump duck could be, in the bandaged arms of Fakir across from her. The machinations were broken behind him. They were free but Rue could not be free of this unyielding feeling of gratitude which ought to be returned in token affection.

It was unfair that the villainess could become a princess but the protagonist had to remain lowly and poor as a duck.

There had to be some way, Rue thought, for Ahirue to get her equally hard won and equally deserving happy ending. One where she could dance to her heart’s content and could laugh and sing and write and go to school and enjoy being human. She didn’t deserve to go back to a simple, lakeside life as a duck, Rue thought.

Thus, if only… if only Rue could take advantage of how Ahiru was breaking her heart right now. Taking the metaphor and making it literal, no different to how Mytho had plunged a sword to his chest and shattered his heart; taking one of the remnant shards and forging it into a necklace which would gift a simple duck with humanity and princesshood. 

But such things, Rue knew, knew very well, would only lead to a fate worse than what Ahiru had already been gandered. It was better a duck than a crow. A crow mad with hate and malice. At least a duck was kind and hopeful.

And even then, if Rue did shatter her heart, what would become of her?

Could she still be loved - loved by Ahiru - if she had no heart? No matter how corrupt with Raven’s blood?

And even if she could only chip one jewel away from the organ in her flesh, would she still be Rue, Ahiru’s dear friend, if even one emotion was missing from her breast?

It had been the Shard of Hope which had become Ahiru’s transformative pendent but who would Rue be without hope? Even deep in the abyssal malice and loathing as Princess Kraehe, Rue had been hopeful. Hopeful for love, yearning for the validation that she sought and those feelings, in turn, bridge upon hope for a better future. That her actions, no matter how cruel or misguided would be founded. A cruel and sickening hope.

Made worse by, what if it wasn’t hope which was chipped from her heart should Rue choose to take some swan-necked knife or sword or dagger to her breast in the hopes of finding the magic which she needed to give her friend the happy ending that Rue thought she deserved?

What would happen to her? If she was without joy, without sorrow, without courage, without love or anything else at all? 

Worse still, what would happen to  _ her _ ? Ahiru? 

Rue could think of nothing worse, for this was the hell she knew, than giving someone one thing but having it turn another. It would only end in heartbreak, torn and teared, for certain. She did not want to put Ahiru through the same pain that she had put Mytho through if giving her any other shard of her heart at all could create that same misery.

It was awful and for Ahiru, Rue came to wept because she was stricken with, well, rue. Regretfulness and indecision borne of what she knew very well could go wrong and for the happiness that she thought Ahiru ought to feel, Rue wept to herself. Alone. And in a paradise which she feared would be desecrated at her unworthy fingertips.


	7. Class

A penny for her thoughts, oh no, Rue would buy them on an excess at a dollar merely to hear Ahiru speak. Coin after coin, she would slot into Ahiru’s hand just to feel her skin, to have that fleeting contact between them.

She knew it was wrong but the heart wanted what it could not have and despite having all the riches in the world, per the scripture of her male betrothed’s cheque book, Rue couldn’t buy a poor girl’s life, unfortunately but she could buy a little bit of her time.

Ahiru wasn’t even the best shoe shiner in the business, but she was the one that Rue wanted. The only one. 

She was flecked with snow and grime at the best of times but freckles too, on those adorably round cheeks and the way she smiled. Earnest and meagre, Rue’s heart would pound every time she saw it. She worked so hard for so little and Rue pitied it only the way a covetous rich girl like her could. She found it wrongfully romantic, living on each dime and with no fixed address save for the gaslamp by such and such corner every other Tuesday. 

“Here allow me, Miss Rue.”

Ahiru’s voice was chipper. Impossibly cheerful in the din of this rather awful and murky winter afternoon. But Rue smiled nonetheless. Seeing Ahiru, hearing Ahiru, she felt the golden glint of a drop of sunshine for the first time in hours. She delicately grabbed her daywear gown, crimson and heavy with fluted ruffles, and lifted her foot. She delicately placed it atop Ahiru’s little cardboard box. She had to be careful lest she became the touch which destroyed the dinged up little box which Ahidu’s income depended on.

“Thank you, Miss Rue.” Ahiru replied.

“My pleasure, dearest.” Rue was the one to smile next, her lips were painted with a demure crimson, her voice was delightful.

Ahiru got on her knees for Rue. The fabric over her knees, twice patched from random scraps, wore thin. She could feel the gravel and grain of the cement path underfoot as she plucked her rag from beside her. She caressed the rag through some of the cleaning product, scant and watered down, that she had with her as well and then Ahiru began to shine Rue’s shoes. With the utmost pleasure and concentration, she polished Rue’s boot with the rag.

Rue adored to watch her. As meagre as a craft shoeshining was, Ahiru took it very seriously. She wouldn’t stop until she could see her reflection in the luxurious leather that Rue clad herself with. None could compare with Ahiru’s technique, both vigorous and gentle.

Her forehead was slick with sweat. Her thin eyebrows were furrowed. Her little tongue poked out cheeky from between her lips with concentration and Rue could not help but endlessly admire Ahiru from where she was, above and below respectively.

Ahiru blew on the toe of Rue’s boot and she was satisfied with how it fogged up. There was a dull ache behind her knee. She didn’t get all that many customers but the many which she did get were more than enough to cause her spine to bow and her legs to ache as she knelt before them. She looked up, grinned a blithe, closed eye grin unto Rue.

“All down Miss Rue, show me the other.” Ahiru said.

“Certainly.” Rue replied.

With a shimmy and a shake, Rue’s dress fluttered about as she switched over her feet. Ahiru blushed as she got sneak peaks at what exactly was underneath Rue’s dress. All ornate bloomers and garters, all cream coloured and ruffled, but still too privvy for innocent Ahiru to glimpse. Rue chuckled to herself as she lightly toed down on Ahiru’s little cardboard box again. Blushing, Ahiru’s eyes ducked down once more from the way the gorgeous dress which Rue wore distracted her with its shining movements around her long and elegant legs.

“Thank you, dearest.” Rue voiced again. Her gratitude bejeweled her refined voice.

“It’s my pleasure, Miss Rue.” Ahiru replied. Her sincerity hung in the lace doilies of her charmingly rustic voice.

Ahiru shined down Rue’s right boot as best as she could. She redid the laces on them, slightly tighter too since they were beginning to loosen, from what she could tell and Rue appreciated the gesture. The squeeze of the laces across the bridge of her foot felt good but Ahiru working harder to actually shine her boot felt better. And yes, Rue could feel how Ahiru swabbed at her boot so steadily, with whirls and whorls, circling the bridge, running her rag along the creases until she could say done.

Ahiru whistled a little birdie tune when she was finished, wiping the sweat from her brow and then giggled. Rue stepped down, half way, from the little box that Ahiru had provided. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and she felt mighty swell with her newly shone boots of the finest leather. Meanwhile, Ahiru’s eyes flicked up back to Rue’s again and their gazes connected. Only to disconnect again, Rue demure with a sudden yet playful shyness. She flaunted a fan, feathered and fluffy with an oriental motif, and batted it in front of her pale face. Ahiru was certain there was a smile hidden behind the scarlet of it. 

Once she felt sufficiently played off as coy, Rue extended hand, “Ahiru, dearest, allow me.”

“Thank you, Miss Rue.” Ahiru chirruped. 

Her hand slotted in again Rue’s. She was ginger though where Rue was far firmer. She pulled Ahiru to her feet. She stumbled slightly where Rue remained elegantly stalwart. Ahiru muttered to herself, cursing her clumsy nature but Rue didn’t mind. She found it adorable as Ahiru rubbed the back of her head, near the rim of the little, patchy cabbie hat she wore. Even though Ahiru had found her footing, they still held hands. 

But it was Ahiru who pulled away first. Chicken, ducking. She was dirty, after all. A little pauper before a starlet like Rue, rising through the fantastical world of riches and ballet. 

“Will I see you again, same time next week, Miss Rue?” Ahiru asked, awkwardly, sheepishly.

“Of course, you are my favourite.” Rue answered her, complimenting her sweet as molasses. 

“I’ll look forward to it.” Ahiru said.

Rue took a breath. She could still feel the sensation of having held Ahiru’s hand in her own. It was nice. Like the feeling of holding a bouquet but misplaced. More human, more intimate than that, perhaps. 

“I’ll look forward to it as well,” Rue said, she clutched onto her fan whilst she gathered up her velour coin purse, “until next week.” She pressed another few coins into Ahiru’s hand, trying to salvage yet more that feeling she got - that undeniably mutual feeling that she got - from holding Ahiru’s hands.

“I appreciate it, Miss.” Ahiru replied, a crinkly smile on her face and pinpricks of tears in her eyes. “Farewell, take care, until next week.”

She accepted the tip hastily and it saddened Rue, just slightly, who shyly retreated from yet more that intriciate ritual her skin craved. She took a breath, only to sigh, and stepped back. She pardoned herself appropriately despite a strange tinge of rejection in the frigid air of the afternoon.


	8. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the film The Half of It

Ahiru joined Rue at the girls’ dormitory public bath. The big one in the middle of the bathroom which was soapy and bubbly and giving off great reams of steam. It felt good, exciting even, to do so much as set foot in the shallows if it as Ahiru waded out, submerging, naked, and meeting Rue who was already there. Soaking. Floating.

It was uncommon for both girls to use the dormitory wide bathhouse, but they were seeking out specific skinship tonight. From each other. So they made the plan in vague and lacy words. They would meet up later. At the bathhouse. And soak up both the water and the atmosphere and each other.

Towels were left at the porcelain tile edge as Ahiru waded closer to Rue who did not so much as bathe but swim. She was on her back, in the water, floating. She looked angelic. Surrounded by reflected stars on the warm but oddly still water. Still up until Ahiru had taken her own, naked flight. Joining Rue, on her back. Staring at the stars above.

The bathhouse was more like a chapel when the conditions were right. Siliyian, in nature, really. As though painted by Michelangelo, there were countless beautiful things on the ceiling of the dormitory baths. It was breathtaking, steamy, trying to scry all those pictures in totality but mostly, it was stars. Connected constellations and more. Angels, too. Demons, as well. But all winged things looked the same when watching with bleary eyes; white became black, black became white, and strangely enough, grey pervaded through those stark colours - or absences thereof, really. All bordered with neat gold and baby blue trims. 

Ahiru stole a glance at Rue. She looked strange. Two faced. One above the water and one on the water, with all the stars and angels and demons above too. 

“I heard a story once,” Rue spoke, suddenly, almost jolting Ahiru from her lackadaisical reverie on the musing of her surreal beauty, “that the Ancient Greeks believed that when mankind was first made, everyone had a soulmate conjoined to their own body but the gods grew jealous of how merry humans were with their perfect other so. They were cleaved in half.”

“Oh.” Ahiru murmured. “That wasn’t very nice of them.”

Rue laughed and her nose wrinkled. What an adorable reply, she thought. “No, it wasn’t nice at all. But according to legend, humans always continued to search for their other half. No matter the difficulty of being cleaved in two.”

“Okay, that is a little nice. Still sad though.” Ahiru replied. Her eyes wandered back up to the ceiling. Her mind wondered if she looked the same. Reflected in double, amongst all the stars so still on the water. She couldn’t find it in herself to ask Rue.

“It's romantic, I suppose.” Rue murmured.

Ahiru hummed. She blinked. She agreed. And she stole another glance at Rue. Rue kept her pale hands on her chest, just obscuring her breasts but Ahiru, perversely, could still notice the shape of them just beneath, just hidden but her eyes, chastely, wandered elsewhere. To her beautiful face with deep, dark eyes which had turned a tumultuous reddish brown. Her fringe was still dry and fluffy despite the rest of her hair beneath the water, dangling and dark, reminding Ahiru of the tentacles of an octopus more so than anything else. Anything feathered. 

Ahiru remembered something Fakir had asked her. Something about Odette and Odile. Asking if Odile’s love was corrupt or if it was just as pure as Odette’s? 

It was a question worth asking, Ahiru thinks. She sighed.

Ahiru wasn’t neat like Rue as was. She could keep her hands to herself, they dragged to the side, beneath the water, wishing desperately that she could clutch onto Rue’s hand for comfort but, alas, Rue wasn’t slovenly like she was. 

She sighed again, and blinked slowly, only to close her eyes again, as though sleepy but she swears that she’s not drowsy in the slightest, she’s just comfortable, and she continued to wonder and wander among the stars around her. She wondered if Odile’s love was pure. It was just her father’s love which was all wrong and bad and evil, after all, maybe?

“This is nice.” Ahiru quietly mumbled to her and Rue but mostly herself.

Rue hummed. “It is.” she agreed.

Ahiru’s heart thrummed. She was greatly pleased to hear that as she let the warm and soapy water claim her. It was so different to her lake but it was, as she had said, nice. And, for now, maybe all that’s what it needed to be.


End file.
